The present invention relates to an information transmission system having N signal inputs, N signal outputs and N transmission stages via which the N information signals can be simultaneously transmitted in parallel. Alternatively, from an information signal range of M information signals with M.ltoreq.N, only the information signal at the upper or at the lower range boundary is transmitted.
For electronic musical instruments such as electronic organs, for example, in which the actuation of a tone or note proceeds by means of keys in keyboards and pedals, it can be desirable to sound only the highest or the lowest tone when several keys are simultaneously pressed. This is particularly the case for pedal tone production since even an experienced player can readily make mistakes in tones in the outer ranges of the pedals. It is therefore expedient to moderate a mistake created by a simultaneous erroneous pedaling of several keys, by providing the possibility in the electronics of the musical instrument of sounding only one tone which can either be the highest or the lowest of several tones simultaneously produced.
Since the possibility of playing the wrong key on the keyboard is less likely for an experienced player, the possibility, on the other hand, should be provided with the production of tones or notes to simultaneously ring out several tones or notes.
Several resolution possibilities are known in electronic organs for the selective blending-out of a single tone from several tones. One possibility, for example, consists of operating with mechanical contacts connected in series. If one of these contacts opens by means of key pressure, other selectively higher or lower contacts receive blocking signals. For these contacts the key signal of the corresponding key is then ignored.
Another possibility is also known in accordance with which each key selectively conveys blocking signals to all higher or lower tones or notes.
Finally, it is also possible in a known manner to assign a flip-flop with additional gates to each key in order to selectively sound the highest or the lowest note of several notes.
All these known resolutions, however, are very expensive particularly for a design in integrated technique and are also susceptible to malfunctions.